


Electric Light

by Seefin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Grimmauld Place, HP: EWE, Herbology, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Wrist holding, draughty castles?, eighth year, graveyard superstitions, making out against doors, safe sex, waist grabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 12:32:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11418063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seefin/pseuds/Seefin
Summary: His gloves are from last year and the left one has a small tear in the charmed leather that he has to keep out of sight of Professor Sprout, who would go into a whole lecture on health and safety if she saw it, and then insist he wore a pair from the lost and found bucket in the corner of her mouldy old office.





	Electric Light

**Author's Note:**

> [concession-card](http://concession-card.tumblr.com/) looked this over for me thank u mate

1.

His gloves are from last year and the left one has a small tear in the charmed leather that he has to keep out of sight of Professor Sprout, who would go into a whole lecture on health and safety if she saw it, and then insist he wore a pair from the lost and found bucket in the corner of her mouldy old office. The thought makes him shudder; he would probably rather drop out of school entirely than have to wear something used or secondhand. At this point Draco’s just waiting for the moment when somebody catches on that everything he owns is broken now and has a go at him for it.

It’s horribly embarrassing, wearing clothes that are just too short for him, having an outdated Quidditch broom, worse than the rest of the team, having worn equipment that hardly even works properly anymore. He used to make fun of his classmates for shit like that, and mostly tries not to think about it.

Draco was always good at noticing the things people wanted to hide about themselves, and now he’s found himself doing what other people must have done around him; casting _reparo_ on the holes in his jumper so nobody can tell it’s from three years ago, keeping his feet out of sight under a table so nobody makes fun of his shoes. Terry Boot seems like the type, and Draco’s keeping a firm eye on him. He gets stared at anyway, in classes, in the halls, by people who look as though they’d like to take him down a peg or two. Or else they pretend he doesn’t even exist, and he can imagine them laughing behind their hands with each other when they realise he can’t even afford a pair of fucking fire-proof gloves anymore.

Probably, everyone knows already. It would have been hard to miss all the news articles about the Ministry taking over his house, Aurors crawling all over the grounds looking for-- Draco doesn’t know what, doesn’t like to think about it. Remains _,_ maybe. He feels sick at the thought of strangers there, in his room, touching everything he wasn’t allowed to hastily gather together for school this year. Out of all the papers, the Quibbler struck a particularly gleeful air in its coverage of the whole affair, which Draco can hardly blame them for, even if he is half-friends with Luna Lovegood now.

So he had hoped someone else would have to trim the fireseed plant. There are six of them in Herbology -all Hufflepuffs apart from Longbottom- which he thought might have given him fairly good odds Professor Sprout would pick someone else. She doesn’t call on him very often, not if she can help it. He sets his knife down, beside the chopping board he was using to cut up some Screechsnap for the new potions teacher. They’re coming up on Halloween and most of the professors can’t be bothered with setting formal lessons so close to a holiday. He makes his way from the newer, teaching greenhouse into the one used for growing some of the more dangerous plants. Students are only allowed in here halfway through fifth year, once Professor Sprout trusts you enough not to run amok amongst the Tentaculas, which grow bigger in the dark, and tower over the benches ominously as you’re trying to work.

The air is heavier in here, a lot of the windows blocked out with ratty sheets of cardboard, and there are huge, orange mushrooms growing all over the place; Draco thinks this can’t possibly be safe, but Professor Sprout categorically refuses to do anything about them. Longbottom is over in the corner, on his knees beside the lily-pad pond, taking water samples with the clear vials out in a neat row beside his ankle. He doesn’t look up when Draco shuts the door behind him, concentrating intently, sandy hair falling into his eyes over a furrowed brow. Longbottom had never really said much while Draco was around when they were younger, probably because he was afraid of getting punched, but he somehow says even less now. Draco looks at him occasionally and feels a jolt in his stomach, a kick of something, and thinks about Longbottom cutting the head off that snake, and the bit before that when he was set on fire in the middle of the courtyard, screaming. He wonders if Longbottom talks more around his friends, or when he’s in the common room with all the other noble Gryffindors.

Draco tears his gaze away, over to the fireseed plant, which is burning merrily away in the middle of the room with a careful meter of space around it on every side; warding it would hinder its growth. He’s a few feet away when he starts to feel its heat, and he casts a quick _reparo_ on his gloves, the fabric knitting together hesitantly.

He’s only just grasped one of the stalks and gone in with his curved peeling knife when he feels a searing pain on his wrist. He drops the knife, where it clatters against the flagstones, probably now another thing broken or damaged.

“ _Jesus,_ ” he hisses, taking a few clumsy steps backwards and stripping his gloves off. He’s already blistered, and he hesitates for a second before touching the raised, tender skin, still burning hot under his fingertips.

“What are you doing?” he hears Longbottom say, far away, and then urgent steps coming up behind him. “Don’t touch it.”

Draco lets himself be steered over to the metal sink set into one of the benches at the side of the room, near the pond Longbottom was just working in. He watches as Longbottom turns on the cold tap as far as it’ll go, until the water is hitting the bottom of the basin with such force that it’s splashing their jumpers.

“Put it under,” Longbottom says firmly, and Draco obeys, hardly even thinking about it.

“Fuck,” he says, a couple of times, the water burning, but he keeps his wrist under there, and Longbottom waits beside him in silence, with his arms folded.

“Are you okay?” he asks after a while, when Draco has sagged against the counter a little, his arm straining. “Were you not wearing the long gloves?”

Draco doesn’t answer, just stares at the black smear of mould growing on the cardboard behind the sink. He can’t think why Longbottom would be talking to him, he hasn’t all year. He doesn’t want Longbottom to find out about the gloves and then be sympathetic, or to find out about the gloves and call him an idiot. He shakes his head, because Longbottom is close to him and waiting for an answer.

“Well,” he says, “that was stupid,” and suddenly Draco is incandescently angry. He _knows_ it was stupid, everything he fucking _does_ is stupid. He turns the tap off and shakes the water off his wrist, not wanting to touch it again.

“Fuck off,” he says, roughly, his voice catching, and then starts to walk away.

“Wait,” Longbottom says, as though he actually expects Draco to do that, “I don't think you left it under there for long enough.”

“I’m going to the hospital wing,” Draco tells him, even though he probably won’t. He thinks he still has some burn cream up in his room, or in his trunk, and although it might have gone off by now it’ll probably still do something. He picks up his gloves from the floor; they’re blackened and singed around the edge of the rip where the charm has worn down, and then collects his knife. The tip was knocked out of shape from where he’d dropped it, and the edge has gone dull, but he can fix that himself in the workshop when there aren’t any lessons on during the holidays.

“Hey,” Longbottom says, from behind him, and touches Draco’s elbow for a second. Draco almost drops the knife all over again, but catches himself just in time. He clenches his fist around the wooden handle.

“What,” he says, wheeling to face Longbottom, who has an unexpected, amused expression on his face that throws Draco off momentarily. “What,” he says again, uncertain. Possibly Longbottom is gearing up to punch him, now that Draco has his hands full and is already weakened with an injury. He shakes himself. Normal people don’t think like that, Longbottom wouldn’t think like that.

“You said _Jesus,_ ” Longbottom says out of nowhere, laughing at the end of it, smiling. “It shocked me.”

Draco swallows. He wants to say that this conversation is shocking, that Longbottom’s smile is shocking. “Pansy’s started saying it,” he tells Longbottom instead, “I must have picked it up.”

Longbottom raises his eyebrows, huffs in laughter. “Honestly, she doesn’t seem like the type either.”

Draco’s wrist hurts, and the mention of Pansy has him wanting to see her, and this conversation is making him nervous. He’s not very used to people who are nice just for the sake of being nice.

“We had to watch films in our muggle studies class,” he says, before he can think the better of it, “Pansy hadn’t ever seen one before, she got sort of obsessed.”

“Seriously?” Longbottom scoffs, unbelieving. Draco supposes it is quite out of character for Pansy, but the war made her weird, there’s nothing he can do about it. She stopped wearing robes, she developed a crush on a Hufflepuff girl. He considers telling Longbottom about that, thinks maybe it would make Longbottom laugh.

“Yes,” Draco replies, “she bought a television for the girls dorm, they watch soaps together and don’t invite me.”

“No way,” Longbottom says, grinning, “holy shit. And now all the Slytherins are swearing like muggles.” He sounds as though this is the best piece of information he’s received all week. Draco considers him for a moment, looks at the holes in his jumper and the way his trousers are too tight over his thighs and a small, inflamed bite mark on his right hand. Possibly this _is_ the best thing that’s happened to him all week. Longbottom doesn’t seem as though he gets up to much in his off hours.

Draco takes a deep breath and thinks this might be a good place to leave the conversation. “I have to go to the hospital wing,” he reminds Longbottom, who starts, and what he really means is _I have to go and get Pansy to stroke my hair for a while while I think about this._

“Oh!” Longbottom says, “yeah, of course, sorry, I just wanted to ask.”

Draco blinks at him. “Will you tell Professor Sprout where I went?” He’ll have to come back later to clean up the Screechsnap, which has probably shrivelled into tough, unusable strings by now.

“Yeah, of course,” Longbottom says, nodding, “I’ll see you in Potions tomorrow.”

“I-- okay,” Draco says, unable to think of anything else, then, after a small delay, “thanks.” He watches for a moment as Longbottom walks back over to the lily-pads, the soft curve of his jaw, his hands, and almost forgets that he was supposed to be leaving.

When he comes back later that evening with Pansy to collect his knife and cutting board, there’s a small package of greaseproof paper sitting beside them, unwarded. He opens it, tentatively, and finds the Screechsnap stalk he’d been working on, neatly chopped and doused in sugar syrup, a little pale, perhaps, but still perfectly adequate.

Pansy leans her sharp chin onto his shoulder, looking down at it. “God,” she says, and scoffs, “I think you’ve made a friend.”

2.

The last Quidditch match before the holidays is between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and falls on a Sunday afternoon. Draco wakes up late, to a heavy wind buffeting against the small diamond panes in his window, his open shutters rattling in the draft. The Slytherin eighth years sleep on a low floor in the Ravenclaw tower, in an odd assortment of private rooms and huge, cold dormitories. The dungeons were flooded during the battle, or some time in the chaos after it, rendering them unlivable; the thick window out to the lake had fractured, letting water seep in for a few days before anyone noticed and did anything about it. The first years are off in the Gryffindor tower, no doubt being bullied into oblivion. Either that or forming lifelong friendships with a bunch of reckless prats, and Draco hardly knows which would be worse.

He can’t see the pitch from his bed, and only barely when he leans out of the open window, but there’s rain slanting over the grey stone, and dark clouds in the distance. He closes his eyes, the back of his head crackling softly against his feather pillow. It would be perfectly possible to call in sick today, but they’d barely let him back on the team as it is, and Draco doesn’t really want to give the captain any excuse to throw him off.

The ceiling in the Great Hall is thundering when he goes down to get lunch, slumping himself down heavily beside Greg as he works his way through a mountain of bacon sandwiches. Draco’s stomach turns slightly at the sight. He glances over to the Gryffindor table, more out of habit than anything else, and catches Potter staring at him, drinking sourly from a teacup with his fingers clasped too tight around the porcelain, his knuckles white. He scowls when Draco’s eyes land on him, and raises his middle finger before Draco can glance away.

“Fucking idiot,” Greg says, “would have thought he’d loosened up a bit.” This, garbled through a mouthful of white bread, but true regardless.

“He’s always been like that,” Draco points out, his eyes sliding away from Potter’s downturned mouth, over a couple of Weasleys, until he finds the back of Longbottom’s head. He’s bent over his plate, his shoulders hunched.

“Yeah,” Greg says slowly, “still though, I thought getting rid of Voldemort might have cheered the bugger up.”

Draco laughs and helps himself to one of Greg’s sandwiches, getting an elbow in the stomach for his troubles. “He doesn’t even look happy about Quidditch,” Greg points out, rather astutely.

Draco looks over to Potter, reluctantly, and sees that Greg is actually right. Potter’s ignoring whatever Hermione is saying to him, frowning into his porridge as though-- “I suppose it’s understandable,” Draco says abruptly, “he lost a lot of people.”

Greg grunts. “So did Weasley, so did all of them, don’t see anyone else looking at you like they want to hex your balls off.”

It’s different with Potter, it always has been; he’s always been more angry, more vicious, more sad and worried than anyone else.

“Apparently he died,” Draco tells Greg, quietly. There are some first years sitting nearby talking about horses, and he doesn’t want them to overhear. “ _Actually_ died, and then came back.”

Greg furrows his brow. “Where’d you here that?”

“I can’t remember,” Draco says, except that he can, actually. It had been in the library a few days ago, after his accident in the greenhouse. The golden trio had holed themselves up in the restricted section for some reason, and Draco had seen them when he’d gone in there to use the better armchairs. They’d been sprawled on the floor, talking in low voices, holding hands. Draco hadn’t heard much, it had felt like he was seeing something he wasn’t meant to, he’d almost wanted to blush.

“So that’s twice, then,” Greg says thoughtfully, “fucking hell.”

“Twice--” Draco says, trailing off to watch Potter stand up, kicking the bench backwards with a thud, Weasley and Hermione rising with him as though they’re under some obligation to do whatever Potter does. “Twice what?” he asks, when Greg pokes him in the elbow.

“Twice he’s lived through the killing curse,” Greg replies, a bit too loudly. The first years glance over, their faces a little stricken, and go quiet.

“Thestrals are better than horses,” Draco tells them quickly, taking a green apple from the glass bowl two places down the table.

“ _What?”_ an impossibly small girl says, “are you _crazy?”_

“They… they are invisible,” the one next to her pipes up, rather reluctantly, and then they’re off on an argument again, their voices raised good-naturedly. Draco almost smiles.

“Where’s Pansy?” he asks instead, “did you see her today?”

“Nope,” Greg replies, popping his lips at the end, “but we’re meeting in the entrance hall later to go down to the pitch.” A long rumble of thunder sounds from overhead, as if to punctuate the end of his sentence. Draco sees Longbottom startle, out of the corner of his eye, and then start to laugh with Ginevra, who’s sitting across from him. He’s wearing a red jumper today, with small snitches flying around the collar and the cuffs. It’s-- appropriate, Draco supposes, and tries not to imagine him in green.

Draco stands up. “I’d better go, I’m late as it is.”

“Good luck and everything,” Greg says, waving him off, serving himself a slice of apple pie, “break a leg and all.”

*

Ginevra Weasley is going to be famous one day, possibly even more famous than Potter is right now, and possibly very soon. She’s faster than anyone else on the pitch, and Draco thinks she might have been made seeker if Potter hadn’t returned for eighth year and fucked it all up for her. The Gryffindors did have the sense to elect her captain, thankfully, and she’s been doing a good job this term, they haven’t lost a match yet. She whips past him, spraying mud and a stream of water from the end of her sodden ponytail. The rain hasn’t let up at all in the three hours they’ve been playing, and the only time Draco saw the snitch was when Madam Hooch let it out at the start of the match.

Potter is over on the other side of the pitch, beside the old set of stands nobody uses because of the rotten wood. Draco can barely even see him through the driving rain, although he looks like he’s sulking. A few minutes ago he’d hurtled off in the direction of the forest, and then made a sharp turn back towards the goalposts, catching Draco off guard, but it hadn’t come to anything. Draco’s edging closer now; usually when games go on for this long it’s prudent to just tail the other seeker in case they see the snitch before you do. Wet to the bone, he’s almost at the point where he wouldn’t even mind if _Potter_ caught the snitch, because then at least they could all just go inside and have some dinner.

“Oh here we go,” Potter mutters, as Draco approaches, staying close to the side of the stand where it’s a little more sheltered from the freezing wind.

“What was that?” Draco calls, itching for something to do. His hands are freezing inside his sopping woolen gloves, his ankles exposed to the elements where his trousers are a tiny bit too short when he’s sitting down. He feels very much like throwing all caution to the wind and punching Potter in the face.

“You can’t ever fucking do it yourself, can you,” Potter says, taking his glasses off to wipe them down. _Merlin_ he’s such an idiot. Draco almost feels like telling him about the impervious charm, just to see what Potter says.

Draco gets a little closer, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Potter snorts as he puts his glasses back on, his eyes darting around the pitch, everywhere but Draco. “Shut the fuck up,” he says, “you know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Luckily,” Draco drawls, “I don’t have to answer to you.”

“You’re such a fucking cheat,” Potter blurts, almost incredulously, changing his grip on the handle of his broom. “I don’t even know why they let you play anymore.”

Draco doesn’t reply, because he isn’t entirely sure either, and it would sound terrible if he told Potter it was probably because he was the best seeker in Slytherin. Something glints out of the corner of his eye, and he’s turned on his broom before he even thinks about it.

Something is shining dully over beside a clump of Hufflepuffs braving the dire weather in the taller of the three usable towers, but he can’t quite make it out. It might be the snitch, it might be one of those fucking snitch badges people are always wearing to the matches to throw the seekers off, the ones that should have been banned by now. He turns his head, slightly, and sees that Potter is still focused on the goalposts, watching Ginevra as she makes an attempt on the goal, and he’s off before Potter can see what he’s doing. His broom is old, a Nimbus 4000 from two years ago, with a chunk missing out of the wood at the front that definitely does something to its streamlining. He kicks his ankles up onto the back of the broom, leaning forward until his chin is almost touching his clasped hands; his eyes are stinging and he’s barely able to keep them open as he scans the crowd for the snitch. He hears the telltale whip of fabric that means Potter’s closing in behind him, on a broom he bought this year that doesn’t have a twig out of place on the tail.

The wall of the stand is fast approaching, and Draco can see that it is the snitch now, vibrating in the air beside the green and silver of a Slytherin banner, low to the ground with its wings humming. It flits off again, and when he turns sharply to avoid hitting the tower, Potter is right there in Draco’s way, and he tries to pull up but he doesn’t quite make it, the tail of his broom glancing off Potter’s shoulder, sending him into a roll. He hits the corner of the tower, a sharp pain blooming in his elbow, tearing through his cloak and long-sleeved sweatshirt. Potter’s just above him, hand closing in on the snitch, and before Draco can think it through he’s grabbed hold of Potter’s ankle, yanking it firmly until Potter slides backwards on his broom a little and tries to kick him off. Draco digs his nails into Potter’s calf, the other hand tight on his shaking broom handle. Potter _growls_ , Draco can hear him panting, and shakes loose before wheeling around, his face screwed up in outrage. Draco can hear the crowd screaming, some people are cheering, even, and knows objectively he should probably back away, just leave it alone.

“Fucking _cheat,_ ” Potter says, low and rough in the back of his throat, and Draco is hit with a sudden surge of horrified terror, right in the pit of his stomach. This isn’t just-- anyone. This is _Potter_ , he could-- he could kill Draco right in the middle of the fucking pitch and nobody would even blink an eye.

“I--” Draco starts, and that’s as far as he gets before Potter punches him in the side of the face, with a sick thud that reverberates through his whole body. He gasps wetly for a second, working his jaw, and doesn’t even feel it until he grits his teeth, looking back towards Potter through his dripping hair. Things go downhill fairly fast from there.

*

Draco’s on the sofa with his legs stretched out, reading his Potions textbook absently and drinking a mug of tea, when Longbottom opens the door, a pile of books in his arms.

“Shit,” Longbottom says, wincing when Draco turns his head to see who it is. Professor Sprout is off for Halloween, at home with her wife, and told Draco he could use her office for work while she was away. It’s not mouldy, not really, just a little bit damp where a creeping vine has permanently cracked the window open, and it has a very nice set of lounge furniture.

“Hi,” Draco says, setting the book down carefully on his chest, “aren’t you gone?” The Hogwarts Express left a few hours ago, most of the students leaving with it, except for the ones who don’t have anywhere else to go.

“I’m getting a portkey back this evening,” Longbottom says, lowering the books onto the stained glass coffee table beside one of the better armchairs. “Can’t stand the train, honestly.”

Draco looks at him. This is new information, as far as he knew Longbottom was perfectly fine with train journeys, he’d done it every September as far as Draco could remember. “Okay,” he says.

Longbottom sighs as he drops into the armchair closest to Draco’s head, uninvited. “Harry really got you, didn’t he?”

It hurts when Draco makes a face. “It’s not that bad,” he tries, “it looks far worse than it is.”

“Okay because it looks _terrible_ ,” Longbottom tells him, touching his fingers to his own eye, “why haven’t you got that black eye looked at?”

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t like Draco. Doesn’t ever go as far as not treating him, but she’s certainly reluctant when she does. “It’s a badge of honour,” Draco says, taking a sip out of his cup. It’s almost gone cold, and he considers going into the small bathroom to make another one but doesn’t want Longbottom to leave.

“Seriously though,” Longbottom says, looking _actually_ serious about it. Draco sits up.

“I haven’t got around to it yet. Anyway shouldn’t you be worried about Potter?”

“He’s fine,” Neville says, amused, “he had to get the _bite_ disinfected, but other than _that_.”

Draco sighs, tips his head back against the arm of the sofa. “I’m going to have to say sorry to him now, aren’t I.”

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Neville asks, “you might have a concussion or something.”

“I’m fine,” Draco tells him, staring up at one of the dried clementines hanging from the glass ceiling of the office, “I don’t know how many more ways I can say it.”

Longbottom takes a deep breath, and then laughs quietly, almost to himself. “Alright,” he says, “it’s weird to see you looking like this, that’s all.”

“Like what?” Draco asks, unable to help himself. Longbottom leans back in the chair, props up his feet on a floral footstool. He’s tanned, somehow, Draco notices, maybe from working in the vegetable garden all through the term with the house elves. He just-- seems so relaxed, so content, with his easy smiles and the slow, sure way that his body moves, nothing like it used to. Draco feels very bony next to him, and thinks vaguely about how nice it would be to touch Longbottom’s shoulders, to slide his hands down Longbottom’s arms. He isn’t sharp, the way that Draco is.

“Roughed up,” Longbottom says, after a short pause. “You’re usually quite put together.”

Draco wants to laugh, and then does. It’s incredible to him that Longbottom sees him as someone like that, someone neat. Draco doesn’t feel that way at all.

“Is that funny?” Longbottom asks, but he’s laughing too.

“God,” Draco tells him, “you have no idea, actually.”

“Can I have a cup of tea?” Longbottom asks, looking down at his lap, a small smile sneaking across his face, “where’s the kettle?”

*

“What are you doing for the holidays?” Draco asks, once Longbottom is back with two cups of tea, steam spiralling upwards in the cool air. Longbottom settles himself in the armchair, leaning towards Draco with his elbow hanging off the side of the armrest, his face in a patch of weak sunlight slipping in from the circular skylight.

“I’m staying in London,” Longbottom replies, “Harry has a place there.”

“It-- I know that, yes,” Draco tells him, “I’ve been there, when I was a baby.”

Longbottom hesitates for a second, putting it together. “I forget you and Sirius were related,” he confesses.

“So do I,” Draco says. “I mean-- I didn’t know him, so.” His mother never talked about Sirius or Andromeda when Draco had been growing up. He didn’t even know what they looked like for most of his life, and the first time he had seen Sirius’ face it had been on a wanted poster.

“Dean has a new car,” Longbottom says, “and he’s working in London as an apprentice with-- at a wandmakers, so we’ll probably have to go driving a lot.”

Draco’s never been in a car. His father had, of course, back when he worked in the Ministry, but he always found them distasteful; a necessary evil, he’d used to say. Black limousines would come and pick him up at the front steps of the Manor, a driver in white gloves opening the door. Draco saw him sometimes, from his bedroom window, from the entrance of the stables when he was leaving on a hack with Pansy. He can’t imagine Dean Thomas’ car is anything like those used to be.

“So-- you stay with Potter?” Draco asks, wrapping his fingers around the hot mug.

“Yeah,” Longbottom says, “I’ll visit my gran obviously, and um, my parents, but Harry’s house has loads of rooms.”

“He doesn’t mind?” Draco asks, intensely curious. He can’t imagine ever wanting a bunch of odd Gryffindors lounging around his own home, coming in at any old hour, messing the place up.

“He likes having people around,” Longbottom explains, making a face, “or I don’t know if he likes it, but I think it makes him feel better.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

Longbottom shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says, pauses delicately. “He felt really bad about the fight.”

Draco snorts unattractively. “I’m sure.”

“No, he does,” Longbottom insists, sitting forward in his chair, “he doesn’t know what he’s doing at the moment.” He’s very intent as he says this, his eyes dark and serious.

Draco tilts his head to the side. “It wasn’t just him,” he says, and watches, fascinated, as Longbottom’s jaw clenches.

“Still, he shouldn’t go around just-- punching people,” Longbottom says, then, tiredly, “it’s not a great solution.”

“To what?” Draco asks, trying to school his features into something that isn’t just-- incredibly fond. _Shouldn’t go around punching people,_ Merlin. He remembers Potter killing the dark lord, singlehandedly, about a five minute walk from where they’re sitting, and still Longbottom’s going around acting as though punching someone is-- reckless, wild, as though Potter has only just _now_ gone entirely mad.

“I don’t know,” Longbottom says, shaking his head. He laughs and stares at Draco a little too long, until Draco feels his face start to redden, until he feels something start to tighten in his chest. “I forgot what I was talking about,” Longbottom says, quietly, as though he’s telling a secret.

3.

His eye has healed the next time he sees Potter, in the library with Hermione. She looks up from her book and waves him over, making some odd motions with her hands when Potter tries to stand up and leave.

“Draco,” she says, “I wanted to ask about the Arithmancy homework.”

“Sorry about--” Potter says, and then cuts off halfway through, staring at the History of Wandmaking shelf as though something in there will save him. After a second, Draco takes pity on him.

“It’s fine,” he says, even though maybe that’s the wrong word for it, “I’m sorry too.”

“I’m _not_ sorry _,_ ” Potter says, aghast, and Hermione gets an awful, horrified look on her face, and says “ _Harry._ ”

“Fine,” he says, “I am, but I still think you’re-- I think you’re cheating when you follow me around the pitch.”

His hair is hanging in his eyes, even though it looks as though he’s tried to tie it back in some fashion. Draco truly can’t be bothered with this right now. “What about the homework?” he asks Hermione, and ignores Potter when he scoffs and thumps his open book around on the table a little, apparently in protest of Draco’s non-response.

“I don’t understand this question,” she says, and points to something in the textbook Draco can’t even read properly.

“There’s at least three symbols in there I haven’t seen before,” he points out. She can hardly of thought he’d be any use at this. If she doesn’t understand something then _he’s_ unlikely to.

“Not surprising,” Potter mutters, and Hermione slams her book closed.

“Fucking-- _prat,_ ” she says, and Draco takes a step back as she pushes her chair out into the walkway. She doesn’t exactly smack Potter on the back of his head, but it looks as though it was a close call. Instead, she puts her hand firmly on Potter’s shoulder. His hand is curled into a loose fist, his knuckles resting right beside his wand, just touching it. There’s a scar on the back of his hand Draco hasn’t noticed before.

“Please,” Hermione says, her voice soft, and Potter crumples slightly under her touch. Draco starts to leave, his heart beating fast at the sight of them, he doesn’t know what’s going on, and even though he doesn’t think Hermione would let Potter fight him in a library he’s still-- afraid. Potter always seems as though he’s humming with energy, as though he’d shock you if you got too close, and maybe it should have dissipated after the battle but it didn’t, if anything it’s got worse. He seems volatile, ready to catch fire.

“Malfoy,” Potter says, looking up, “wait a second.” His hands are shaking, Hermione disappears around the corner, into the home herbology section.

“If this is about you punching me,” Draco says, “it’s-- it’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not about that,” Potter tells him, then, “do you want to sit down?”

“Alright,” Draco says, and then does, in the stiff-backed chair next to the one Hermione had just vacated. He tries to think about the worst thing Potter could do to him here. Maybe he’ll say he’s thought about it, and that Draco really should join his father in Azkaban, or his mother under house arrest in Paris. Potter could probably make that happen. He’s friends with the new Minister, Draco’s heard. He could ask for Draco’s wand back, and Draco wouldn’t be able to get another one.

“You-- you’re on first name terms with Hermione now,” Potter says, and it’s such an innocuous statement that Draco is thrown by it.

“Yes,” he says, shocked into honesty, “we-- yes, we’re friends, we have arithmancy together on Tuesdays.”

“Right,” Potter says, “I don’t care about that.”

“Then why did you fucking ask,” Draco snaps, folding his arms. He feels as though he looks like a child in the middle of a tantrum, about to stamp their foot. He uncrosses them, deliberately, clasping his hands in his lap.

“You apologised to everyone,” Potter says, in a rush, “Hermione, Ron said you talked to him, Ginny about what your dad did. I just-- you didn’t apologise to me, you didn’t say anything when I gave you your wand back, or--” He cuts off, shakes his head as if clearing it.

Draco takes a long, long breath in, stunned. “You’re upset I didn’t apologise to you.”

“I think you’re up to something,” Potter says, but-- he doesn’t, Draco thinks, he’s just saying that as an excuse.

“I apologised to your friends,” Draco continues, “and you want to know why I didn’t come crying about it to you.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Potter says suddenly, in a hissing whisper, “you fucking prick, I should have been the _first_ fucking--”

“I thought you might kill me,” Draco tells him, viciously, standing up. He puts his hand flat on the wooden table. “You _know_ you’re terrifying, you can’t not know that.”

“What?” Potter asks, bewildered.  _"W_ _hat_?” His eyes are wide now, shocked, and looking Draco right in the face. "No?"

“Okay,” Draco says, clean out of energy, “I’m sorry for everything I ever did or said to you and your friends. I’m sorry I tried to kill you all those times, _obviously. Obviously_ I’m fucking sorry.”

“You’re being flippant,” Potter says, quietly.

“I’m not being fucking flippant,” Draco insists, frustrated almost to the point of tears, “I’m _not_ being flippant, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to apologise for all of that. It’s-- it’s everything I ever said or did up until about six months ago, it’s my whole _life,_ you _idiot_.”

Potter looks as though he wants to throw up. “Sorry for punching you,” he says solemnly, his fingers twitching. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Sorry for biting you in the calf even though you started it,” Draco tells him, and walks away as Potter’s eyes go wide and his mouth opens, before he can say anything else.

4.

It’s late on a clear night, a week into December, and the moon overhead is almost bright enough to see by. Neville is kneeling on the ground in the frozen mud, on a woven mat he’d brought with him rolled up and tucked under his arm as they’d walked down from the castle.

“Pass me those shears,” he says, not looking, then a second later, “please.”

Draco looks up from his book and hands Neville the long gardening shears that are sticking out of his satchel. Neville hums in thanks and starts gingerly snipping at the tough base of the fluxweed stalk.

“Stop,” Draco says, as the moon sinks behind the clouds and the page of his book goes dark. Neville sits back on his haunches with a sigh, craning his neck to try and see where the cloud bank ends. Draco swallows hard, watches him.

“Shit,” Neville says, and drops the shears with a small grunt of annoyance, “this is going to take forever.” He sits down, properly now, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. His eyes dart over to Draco a couple of times, back and forth between his face and the thick, impenetrable treeline of the Forbidden Forest on their left. He smiles to himself. “It’s not that bad,” he admits, after a second, “it could be worse.”

“We could be here with Ernie,” Draco agrees, closing the Potions textbook he had been reading, with his finger still on the page about Polyjuice Potions.

“I like Ernie,” Neville says, but his heart doesn’t seem in it. He closes his eyes. “He’s harmless, it’s sweet.”

“He’s boring,” Draco says, then pauses, “anyway you’re quite harmless, aren’t you?”

Neville laughs as he opens his eyes, and levels Draco with this _look._ “Do you think so?” he asks, voice gone low, serious. The moon slips out from behind the clouds, making him jolt his head up, but then goes away again. Draco shakes his head; the answer he’s thinking of doesn’t seem to be the one Neville wants to hear.

“Yes,” he says, and it’s true. That moment, that burst of something in the courtyard at the start of summer, at the end of the war, seems as though it came out of nowhere. Draco has heard people call it courage, but that doesn’t sound like quite the right word, or quite the right way of speaking about it, as though courage was a quality nobody knew Neville had. Draco saw him kill Nagini, that day, and thought _we’re all going to die._ The only thing Voldemort liked, a fucking snake, and Longbottom had cut her in two with a sword.

Draco talks to Neville and doesn’t think him capable of killing anything, when they’re in the greenhouse, making things grow in the weak, filtered light. Draco doesn’t know if he could say that without making it sound bad, or how he would make clear that he loves it. Neville doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, probably.

“You weren’t really there, were you?” Neville asks, frowning interestedly.

“Where?”

“The battle,” Neville replies, “you weren’t really there.”

“I was there,” Draco says, then runs out of things to say. He thinks about the fiendfyre, the dreadful search for his parents. “I was _there,_ Neville.”

“You were busy trying to fuck Harry over though, you didn’t see what we were doing,” Neville says, sharp. Draco shivers, his spine crawling.

“No,” he admits, “I didn’t see you that night, I don’t think, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So how would you know then? If I’m _harmless?_ ” Neville asks, almost offhandedly. He sits forward and rubs the heels of his hands together, they’re red from being pressed into the rough surface of the rug. Draco doesn’t say anything, he supposes there’s a difference between being _able_ to do something and enjoying it, and he doesn’t know if Neville is expecting an answer or not.

“It wasn’t meant to be an insult,” Draco says, helplessly, after a few seconds of silence. He wants Neville to look at him again.

“I know,” Neville says, then, after a moment, “like, that you meant it as a compliment. It’s not true, though.”

“Okay,” Draco says, “sorry.”

Neville glances up from his hands and softens. “It’s okay, it’s-- no it’s fine, um,” he shakes his head, smiling wryly in a way Draco hasn’t ever seen before. He takes a deep breath, Draco wants to touch him. “Can I ask what you’re doing after school’s over?”

“I’m--” Draco cuts off, shocked into dry laughter, “I’m leaving, hopefully.”

Neville looks taken aback. “Leaving for where? Why?”

Draco is sick of being watched all the time, he hates feeling as though people are waiting for him to slip up, he’d like to live somewhere where nobody has ever heard of him. “Paris, maybe,” he says, ripping a clump of grass out of the ground beside his knee, “my mother lives there now.”

“Really?” Neville asks, “do you have family out there or something?”

“No,” Draco replies, slowly, “she’s-- she’s under house arrest, actually, and couldn’t live in the Manor obviously.”

He doesn’t know if that _is_ obvious, but Neville just nods. “I’m sorry,” he says, “you must miss her.”

“What are you planning?” Draco asks, unable to even respond to that.

“After school? I was thinking about becoming an Auror,” Neville replies, picking at a loose thread at the hem of his trousers.

Draco looks at him and tries to tell from his face whether he’s joking or not. “Are you-- with Potter?” Draco asks, “are you serious?”

Neville shrugs. “I don’t know, I have no idea, we were _asked,_ is the only thing, and you know Harry has a really fucking hard time saying to no to people who ask for help.”

“But--” Draco manages, before Neville cuts him off.

“I think I’d be a shit Auror,” he says, laughing, “and Harry would probably be _worse_ , I dunno what Kingsley was thinking when he asked us.”

“There are still Death Eaters,” Draco says, “he probably wants Potter to-- it would make everyone feel safe, wouldn’t it? Having the boy-who-lived out there, hunting them down.”

Neville nods, twisting his mouth. “Yeah, definitely, but… it’s not for him, I don’t think any of us want him to have to go straight back into fighting.”

“He’s started following me again,” Draco tells him, “I think he thinks I’m up to something.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Neville says, with a quick, nervous flash of a smile.

Mostly it’s harmless, doesn’t seem to have the same urgency to it that it did in Sixth year, when Draco actually _was_ up to something. Potter just follows him around sometimes, between classes and down to dinner and up to the new common room, although he never goes out to the greenhouses.

“Maybe it’s just familiar,” Draco suggests, “something to do,” and Neville just looks at him, quiet, the way he does occasionally when he’s thinking about what to say.

“Can I ask you something?” Neville says, his face inscrutable in the darkness. The moon had been gleaming when they’d arrived to harvest the fluxweed, so they hadn’t bothered lighting the oil lamp Draco had brought. It seems like an oversight now. An owl hoots overhead, close enough that Draco can hear its wings beating.

“Alright,” he says, wary until Neville faces him, pulling his knee up to his chest and hooking an arm around it, his face gone serious. Draco stares at his bared ankle for a moment, then over Neville’s shoulder at the wrought-iron fence surrounding the garden, and the gate swinging soundlessly where they’d forgotten to close it. He feels himself redden.

Draco is constantly, carefully, having to avoid looking at Neville too obviously; his hands, his stomach, the small of his back when he stretches. Neville has no such qualms, is always tilting his head back and _regarding_ Draco, _watching_ him. And not in the same feverish way that Potter watches; it’s something calm, something he doesn’t mind people seeing. Draco likes it, finds himself leaning into Neville’s gaze like he would into a beam of hot sunlight.

“Maybe not, actually,” Neville says, and sounds like he’s smiling. He shifts closer, then sort of falls forward in an almost awkward movement, so that his forehead is resting on Draco’s shoulder, his head bowed. Draco’s heart beats hard, in his throat, in the palms of his hands. He cups the back of Neville’s head before he can think better of it, where his hair is short and soft. Neville is very brave for doing this, Draco thinks, for this, and for everything else.

Neville breathes out slowly, then in again in a rush, before he turns his face against the collar of Draco’s jumper. Draco can hardly move, their faces are so close together and it’s been such a long time since he’s done anything like this.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice scratching the back of his throat, and that makes Neville laugh. He shakes silently for a second before pulling away.

“Sorry,” he says, looking at Draco’s mouth, “that was-- maybe I should have asked what I was going to ask.”

“What were you going to ask?” Draco replies, and then the owl hoots again, and a strong gust of wind picks up, tangling in Neville’s hair. He shakes his head, once, sharply, and because Neville shouldn’t have to be the only brave one, he puts his hand on Neville’s warm shoulder, leaning in.

“Oh,” Neville says, slow, and he’s smiling again now, looking as though he might laugh. He’s very pretty.

Draco kisses the corner of Neville’s curved mouth, then pulls back to lick his lips before kissing him again. Neville makes a rough, cut-off noise in the back of his throat and brings his hand up to clutch at Draco’s side, grabbing at his jumper. He kisses Draco’s bottom lip, bites it between his teeth, and Draco screws his eyes shut, panting.

They kiss for a long time, legs tangled together, until Draco can’t really breathe and has to tilt his head back, drawing in lungfuls of crisp air as Neville presses his lips against Draco’s throat. Draco feels so soft about him,  so stupid with it, like he’d do anything Neville asked him to.

He pushes against Neville’s shoulder until Neville goes back, sprawling onto the mat with his legs spread, elbows under him. He stares up at Draco with his serious eyes and doesn’t smile, maybe because he knows Draco wouldn’t be able to cope if he saw it.

“Hey,” Neville says, calm, but Draco just shoves his legs together, frantically, before straddling his waist. Neville is sound underneath him, hot, solid, and doesn’t say anything else. He reaches under Draco’s t-shirt and puts his hand flat on Draco’s stomach, his fingertips denting Draco’s skin. Draco watches him, his flushed cheeks and his slightly open mouth, and gives into the urge to lick Neville’s bottom lip.

“Fuck,” Neville tries, but it comes out wrong, and then he says it again. His dick is pressing against the inside of Draco’s thigh, and he moves his hips, once, sharply, like it was an accident. Draco kisses his neck, exposed where Neville has rolled his head to the side, and closes his eyes.

“Alright?” he asks, moving his hand to the button of Neville’s trousers, and it sounds too loud in the silent darkness. He feels shivery and taut with anticipation and he can’t think of anything else. He’d like to make Neville shake apart, wants to feel him come into Draco’s hand, maybe his mouth.

“Yeah,” Neville tells him, moving restlessly, “yes,” and goes to undo the buckle on Draco’s belt. “Is this okay?” he says, hesitating, then, low as Draco kisses his neck, “ _Draco_.”

“God,” Draco says, mouth pressed right up against the heated skin underneath Neville’s ear. _Is this okay._ “Yeah,” he says, “keep going.”

*

“ _Malfoy,_ ” Potter hisses, late one evening when Draco is walking back to his room from the Gryffindor tower. They’re alone in a long, almost-bare hallway. Even the paintings are mostly just hilly landscapes or flowering meadows.

Draco tenses, swivelling to see Potter standing there holding his invisibility cloak loosely in one hand, the bottom hem resting on the stone floor. Draco doesn’t even know why he bothers wearing it around anymore; you can always see scuffed trainers peeking out from beneath it when he walks.

“What?” Draco asks, eyeing the corridor behind Potter’s shoulder. Professor Flitwick’s office is three doors down, he might still be in there, working late.

“I’ve seen you with Neville,” Potter says, stepping closer, his voice low and angry, “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing.”

Draco is suddenly very aware of his rumpled clothing, the creases in his shirt from where it had been lying on the floor for ages. “Piss off,” he says, and Potter just scoffs.

“Are you-- what, _boyfriends_ now?” he sneers, and even Draco has to admit it’s almost impressive how much of a dick Potter can be when he wants to.

“Why don’t you talk to _him,_ ” Draco suggests sharply, “instead of cornering me in a fucking hallway like a lunatic to ask me about my relationship.”

“I _have_ talked to him,” Potter says slowly, narrowing his eyes, “I want to know what--”

“It’s none of your business,” Draco snaps, interrupting him.

“It’s my _business_ when it’s my mate,” Potter argues, raising his voice, and Draco becomes very tired all of a sudden. “I’m not going to let you get away with any _shit._ ”

“I like him,” Draco says, slumping, and considers leaning against the wall. He wants to go back to his room and have a shower, maybe watch a 90210 rerun with Pansy before falling asleep. “It’s none of your fucking business,  _again,_ but I like him.”

“Bullshit,” Potter spits, and Draco wants to ask him where his friends are and if this is his only hobby.

“You don’t think so?” Draco asks, straightening, “you don’t have a very high opinion of your _mate_ then, do you?”

“Actually I don’t believe for a fucking second that he likes _you,_ ” Potter says, viciously, and takes a step backwards, then another. “You’d have to be fucking-- crazy, or something-- after everything you did?” He laughs, angry.

Draco can still recall what it felt like to hate Potter so much that everything else in his life mostly disappeared; he remembers hating Potter for _years,_ without putting in even the least amount of effort. And then, out of nowhere, he’d started having to try at it, because he used to worry that if all that hatred went away then the only thing left would be Potter the hero, brave and noble and beautiful and very, very far away from wherever Draco was. The way Potter always _watches_ him, through his messy hair, with his hands twitching and his jaw set, reminds Draco of it; clinging on to something familiar because you’re fucking terrified about whatever the alternative is.

“People like me,” Draco tells him, gently, so as not to scare Potter off, “I’m likable now, you massive idiot.”

Potter stares at him for a moment too long, until the muscle under his left eye twitches and he says “fuck off,” in a tone of voice that Draco doesn’t believe for a second.

“I’m going to sleep,” Draco replies, “you probably should too.”

Potter nods, an odd jerk, and turns away, not even bothering to put his cloak on as he walks down the hall.

5.

Hogwarts in December is an almost constant assault on the senses, either dripping-wet walls and freezing classrooms, or hot, stuffy dorms with warded fires burning in the grates that are almost impossible to put out unless you somehow track down a house elf to do it for you. Draco’s bedroom doesn’t have a fireplace, instead has three windows that frost over during the night, leaving the room icy cold in the morning when he has to get up and go to classes. He’s been making Neville stay, the last few weeks, a warm weight at Draco’s back when he’s been dropping off to sleep, a heavy arm over his waist when he has to get up in the dark in order to get to the arithmancy room on the other side of the castle by a quarter to eight.

“I’ve had sex with Harry,” Neville tells him, out of nowhere one Saturday afternoon when they’re in Draco’s bedroom, trying to revise for the pointless end-of-term exams.

“What?” Draco says, looking up from his spider diagram on asphodel, his heart going hard, “you have? When?” Possibly he misheard.

“During the summer,” Neville replies, and comes over to lie beside him on the bed, “when we were staying in his house.”

“Oh,” Draco says, “why are you telling me this?” He’s trying not to think about it, the two of them together, Potter’s bed and Neville in it, but can’t really help himself.

“Harry said he talked to you,” Neville says, shifting so that he’s closer to Draco’s crossed legs. He puts his hand on Draco’s thigh and looks up.

“He was so angry at me,” Draco tells him, “and I thought it was because-- I don’t know, I thought it was because he still hates me.”

Neville winces. “I don’t even think he _does_ hate you.”

“He certainly fucking acts like it,” Draco says, watching Neville’s face. He pauses for a second. “I didn’t know he was _jealous._ ”

“Oh Merlin,” Neville says, collapsing back onto the bed with a sigh, “you have no idea.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Draco asks, uncrossing his legs and leaning back on one elbow, so his face is closer to Neville’s.

“So he asked me if we were-- exclusive,” Neville says, after a moment, “and I-- well, I said we hadn’t talked about it, because we haven’t.”

Draco nods, sweat prickling a little on the back of his neck. “Should we?” he asks, then, “do you-- with Potter, did you want to--”

“You’re going to laugh,” Neville says, as Draco’s heart kicks against his ribcage, “but try not to when I tell you this.”

Draco’s not sure he can imagine laughing right now. “Okay,” he says.

“I think,” Neville starts, and then pauses to stifle a smile, “I think Harry might want to have a threesome with us.” It takes Draco a second to process that, and afterwards he starts to laugh even though he’d said he wouldn’t, heaving, with his hand on his stomach. He’s never heard anything more ridiculous. “Hey,” Neville says, but he’s laughing a little too, now.

“Potter doesn’t want a threesome,” Draco says, “Potter wants to hate-fuck me so he can get it out of his system, and then go back to sex with people he doesn’t feel guilty about liking.”

“ _What?”_ Neville asks, raising his eyebrows gleefully, “how do you know Harry has a thing for you?”

“He follows me around,” Draco says, waving it off, “and I’m very fit. Also he’s mental.”

“I can’t believe this,” Neville says, “I can’t believe you think he wants to _hate-fuck_ you, of all things.”

“I can’t believe you think he wants to have a fucking _threesome,_ ” Draco said, “where the fuck did you get _that_ from?”

“He said it to me!” Neville says, raising his voice a little, “you knob.”

“What?” Draco asks, almost hysterical now, “he _what?_ Is he _insane?_ You can’t just go around asking people for threesomes!”

“I know!” Neville agrees, his hand clutching against Draco’s shirt, “I was like… I’ll have to get back to you?” Draco goes breathless with laughter, his eyes watering.

“He doesn’t know how to talk to people,” Neville says, then, suddenly, “wait,” and spreads his hand over Draco’s side, “why do you think he wants to hate-fuck you? Come on.”

Draco looks at him. “What do you imagine it would be like?” he says, gently, “we can’t spend thirty seconds together without arguing, it would hardly be--” he cuts off, shakes his head slightly.

Neville blinks. “Probably there are people out there that hate you,” he says, “but I don’t think Harry is one of them.”

“Right,” Draco says, stung even though-- “ _you_ _would_ if you had any sense,” he snaps.

“This is about me now?” Neville asks, half-amused, “because we’ve had this discussion, what-- fifty times and I--”

“Alright,” Draco says, cutting Neville off as he drops himself down onto the mattress, pressing their thighs together. The sky is darkening outside and the room is getting colder. He closes his eyes.

“I think it could be fun,” Neville admits, “Harry’s--”

“Really attractive,” Draco says reluctantly.

“Well, yeah,” Neville says, laughing again, “kind of awkward, but.”

“He makes it work,” Draco sighs, and Neville snorts. “I didn’t even know he was gay,” Draco says, “I thought he and _Ginny_ were together.”

Neville shrugs, his shoulder sliding against Draco’s. “He’s bi. And honestly, _nobody_ knows what’s going on with him and Ginny, but she’s definitely got a thing going with Luna. I don’t know, they’re probably going to get married or something one day and surprise the shit out of everyone.”

Draco makes a face, “that’s dire.”

“You never want to get married?” Neville asks.

“Not to fucking _Potter,_ ” Draco says, “imagine. He’s a giant mess.”

“But in general,” Neville says, solemnly, making it clear he very much cares about the answer. Draco climbs on top of him, settling his knees into the duvet beside Neville’s hips. Neville’s looking over his shoulder, at the chipped paint on the ceiling.

“Can I tell you something?” Draco asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Neville answers, glancing back towards him, surprised, getting his hands onto Draco’s waist.

“My--” Draco starts, then cuts himself off, feeling intensely stupid, “my intentions toward you--” he tries, before Neville interrupts him.

“Your _intentions?”_ Neville repeats, laughing now, “when did you get posh all of a sudden?”

“My _feelings_ toward you,” Draco corrects, “aren’t--” he pauses, looking for the right word, as Neville sobers underneath him, “casual,” he finishes, feeling as though he’s just ripped his fucking ribcage open.

“I know,” Neville says quietly, “look at you.”

“I told Potter that I _liked you,_ ” Draco says desperately, ignoring him.

“He told me,” Neville says. He smiles, “he told me.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Draco sighs, “fucking Gryffindors, absolutely no idea how to keep a fucking secret.”

“It’s funny you think it’s some sort of secret,” Neville says, “when you’re literally _so_ nice to me now.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I like you and I’m quite serious about you, and that we can have a threesome with Potter if you want,” Draco blurts.

“Because you’ll do anything I say,” Neville says, half-sarcastic, and he-- he’s joking, obviously, but for a second Draco finds it hard to breathe, long enough that Neville turns to him and sees his reddening cheeks.

“No,” Draco manages, taken aback, “I-- that isn’t--”

“It _is,_ ” Neville says, in a tone of dawning wonder, starting to smile, slightly, “ _Draco._ ”

“God.” Draco moans and covers his eyes, “we’re not talking about this, we’re talking about you fucking-- _setting us both up_ with your best friend.”

“He isn’t my best friend,” Neville says, pushing Draco off so that he can straddle Draco’s waist, press him into the mattress. “Seamus and Dean are my best friends, how don’t you know that?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Draco tells him, shifting his hips. Neville leans forward to kiss him, lightly, a delicate, polite thing that leaves Draco quiet. Neville pins his wrists against the mattress.

“Okay?” he asks, his eyes searching Draco’s face. Draco nods. “Listen,” Neville says, his fingers firm around Draco’s wrists, “we’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“I know,” Draco agrees.

“I’m presenting it as an option,” Neville says, “I know you have some sort of weird thing for him.”

Draco’s jaw tightens. “I don’t think I have a weird thing for him.”

“It’ll be casual,” Neville assures him, wide eyed, lovely.

Draco stares at him, opens his mouth to laugh or scoff but instead says, slowly, “no, it won’t be.”

6.

By the end of term everyone had been ill from the bad weather and the bad insulation, and sick to death on top of that from being cooped up inside for days on end once the snow got too thick to walk through. Nobody had been able to get down to Hogsmeade for three whole weekends before the holidays started, and there had been minor outrage when the Hufflepuffs weekly pub night had to be cancelled, which had admittedly provided a limited distraction when they’d occupied an empty classroom in protest late one Friday evening. But other than that the last few weeks had been _awful,_ full of mind-numbingly difficult mock exams and periods of dull, quiet, soul-shattering boredom. After a while, Draco had even resorted to playing chess with Weasley to pass the time, in the Gryffindor common room while Neville had been busy revising or in class.

The last day had come as a relief even for Draco, who for a while had planned on staying in Hogwarts for Christmas, with only an odd assortment of students from other years for company. The Manor was still otherwise indisposed, making it impossible for Draco to stay there or even visit for the day, and he hadn’t much felt like going to Paris, to socialise with the women his mother had somehow managed to make friends with while under house arrest. Pansy had asked him to hers, of course, almost _insisted,_ but Draco had remembered the time over the summer he’d spent at her house, and the way her parents had become steadily less indulgent of his extended stay. They’d liked him, once, what feels like years ago.

Instead, Draco’s spending two weeks at the Longbottom’s, returning to Hogwarts right after New Year. Neville’s grandmother scares him down to his bones, and seems deeply disapproving of Draco as a concept, but lets them sleep in the same room and didn’t even blink an eye when she walked in on them necking in the kitchen a few days ago. They’ve mostly been hanging around Potter’s house anyway, which is huge and rambling and right in the very centre of London with about a thousand rooms, each of which contains a treasure trove of deeply horrifying portraiture. As soon as Draco was past the front door he’d been confronted by the painting of a long-dead relative, who’d screamed for a while about _blood traitors_ as Potter just stood there and laughed and laughed.  

It’s a crisp, clear evening, and the panes of glass in the windows of the pub are opaque with mist; the lights from the traffic passing and the bars opposite are vague, blurred at the edges as headlights pass over then retreat. Sunset had been hours ago, back when they’d still been drinking and sweating in Potter’s living room with the fire roaring in the grate.

“Hi,” Hermione says, as she approaches their table, late and a little bit damp, “it’s snowing,” she tells them, smiling as everyone greets her. Potter pulls the sleeve of his t-shirt down over his hand and clears away some of the condensation on the window, so that they can peer out at the light dusting of snow settling onto the wet pavement. Luna coos in admiration, sipping at her hot whiskey and cloves.

Draco hates the cold, always has done. “I hate snow,” he tells Neville, but Ginny snaps her head over to glare at him.

“You’re joking,” she says, “you can hate it in _Scotland,_ because it’s just obnoxious when it’s up _there_ , but I actually refuse to believe you hate snow in London. It’s gorgeous, it’s like a film set or something.”

“When it melts though,” Hermione points out, before Draco gets a chance to say the exact same thing, and Ginny’s forced to reconsider her point for a moment.

“Slush isn’t snow?” she tries, and Neville laughs, shaking against Draco’s side where he’s leaning their shoulders together, even though the booth they’ve occupied is probably large enough for ten people.

“Give it up,” Neville advises, “before Draco gets started about how that salt shit they put down is bad for the soles of his shoes.”

“Terrible,” Draco says solemnly, right as Potter laughs and says “ _what?”_

“It’s like-- grit,” Draco explains, after a slight pause, “it always gets caked in the tread of my shoes?” There’s silence, just for a second, before everyone starts to laugh at him, Luna sliding off her chair a little bit before catching herself against the sticky wooden tabletop.

“I hate you,” Ginny says, breathless, “why do rich people have the _weirdest_ fucking problems?”

“I’m not really rich anymore,” Draco replies levelly, as Neville puts his hand on his thigh underneath the table, squeezing down tightly.

Ginny screws her face up, grimacing, “shit, sorry, I always forget about that.”

“Also isn’t _Harry_ kind of a rich person?” Luna says, at which Potter starts actively laughing.

“So’s Nev!” he says, gesturing across at Neville and almost knocking over his pint glass in the process. Ginny smoothly moves it out of the way of his elbow. “If we’re casting aspersions.”

“ _Casting aspersions,”_ Draco repeats, laughing, and Potter grins at him.

“I’m getting a drink,” Luna says, sliding out and standing up, “anyone want anything? Hermione? You look like you could use a glass of water.”

Hermione laughs, “I might just get a bottle of wine? Will you have some?”

Everyone starts handing cash to Luna and talking over each other about their drink orders, and Draco watches the big, bright screens over Potter’s head showing some kind of sports match, and feels very warm, like he’s always been here with them, arguing about drinks good-naturedly, sitting with his shoulder against Neville’s. It’s so strange, to think that it could have been like this for _years,_ if he’d been different, or had made different choices. He closes his eyes, just for a second, and listens to Neville asking Hermione about Ron.

“--Late,” she’s saying when he starts to pay attention again, blinking his eyes open, “which would be fine _sometimes,_ but when it’s every single day and I have to-- last Wednesday I was there until _twelve._ ”

“Oof,” Ginny says, wincing, “is that even legal?”

“To make me work late?” Hermione says, scoffing, then her face falls abruptly. “You’d be surprised,” she says darkly, “labour laws in the Wizarding world are--”

“Noo,” Neville pleads, leaning forwards, “I love you but please, please, please don’t start on the law, I can’t take it. It’s a Friday.”

“It’s _interesting,_ ” Hermione insists, intent and pretty in the low light over their table. Draco fiddles with his beer coaster, flicking the corner back and forth until it starts to crease. When he looks up, Potter’s staring at him. Draco raises his eyebrows, _what?_

“I’ve been writing something about that for the Quibbler,” Luna starts. Potter shakes his head, _nothing,_ and the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. _What?_ Draco mouths, but Potter just tilts his head, smiling more broadly now.

“They’re very different in the Muggle world,” Hermione tells her, “so, for example, Muggles have laws that tell you how much time you get during the day for lunch, and your employer has to give you--”

“That’s _barbaric,_ ” Ginny says, outraged, “telling you exactly how much time you have to eat a meal in.”

Hermione sits back in her seat, narrows her eyes just for a moment. “Um,” she says slowly, “It’s more--”

“No _please,_ ” Neville says, “can’t we talk about Quidditch or something? Cannons are looking up.”

“No they’re not,” Draco tells him absently, looking into his shit cider, “they’re never looking up.”

“Killjoy,” Neville says fondly, “I hope when the season starts again they win every match just to spite you.”

“I will bet you a million Galleons they won’t win a single match next season,” Draco tells him, conveniently ignoring the fact he doesn’t exactly have that much money to be bandying about.

Ginny hisses through her teeth, shaking her head slowly. “Tough sell,” she says, “the Kestrels just lost Munro to the Harpies and she was their _single_ good player.”

“Don’t let Seamus hear you say that,” Potter laughs. Draco closes his eyes again, rubs the heel of his hand hard into his eye sockets. He thinks the red lights are getting to him, or _something is;_ he feels hot and odd, skin tight and itchy. Ginny’s voice is getting higher as she and Potter vehemently agree with one another, climbing and climbing.

He stands, abruptly. “Okay?” Ginny says, brow furrowed. Draco looks at her; she’s not said a single bad word to him since school started back up again.

“Yes,” he says, and it comes out much quieter than he’d intended. “Yes,” he says again, “I feel a little ill.”

“Like-- _throw_ _up_ ill?” Neville asks, moving out of the booth so that Draco can get out. “Bathroom?”

“No I-- I’m just going out to get some fresh air,” Draco says, indicating redundantly towards the door of the pub. There’s a group of people between him and the door with their bodies all angled towards the big screens, and there’s a rousing cry as apparently a goal is scored. Draco edges past them as they all pat each other on the back, tipping beer over the edge of their glasses where it sloshes onto the scarred wooden floors.

It’s busy on the street outside, with two lanes of sparse traffic between him and the theatre opposite. Streams of people are spilling out, blocking up the pavement as they stand around and discuss which way it is back to the tube station, or if they should go for a pint before they have to be home. Draco watches a couple walk down the stone steps at the front of the theatre, holding the thick brass handrail and laughing together underneath the gleaming lights of the archway above them. He closes his eyes.

A burst of laughter rises as the front door of the pub opens and then swings closed again, and there’s a brush of warmth at Draco’s shoulder, the weight of someone coming to stand beside him.

“Are you okay?” Potter says, and Draco manages to suppress most of a flinch.

“I thought you were Neville,” he says.

“He’s inside,” Potter tells him, after a small pause, “I-- he told me to--”

“What do you want?” Draco says, talking over Potter’s fumbling attempts at forming a sentence. He’s immeasurably tired, all of a sudden.

“Nothing,” Potter replies, shifting away just a fraction and leaning his back against the wet window behind them. “For fucks sake, nothing.”

“Are you _angry_ at me now?” Draco scoffs.

“You’re so fucking dramatic all the time,” Potter says slowly, shoving some dark hair out of his eyes and laughing wryly just a little, “can you not just have a nice quiet evening at the pub?”

“Look who’s fucking talking,” Draco mutters, then, louder, “as if you have any business lecturing _me_ on making a scene.”

Potter laughs, a bright noise that sounds as though it was startled out of him. “Come inside and I’ll buy you a drink,” he says, sliding towards the door before stopping when Draco shakes his head.

“Just give me a second,” he says.

“Only it’s freezing,” Potter starts, then looks over his shoulder as the door of the pub opens again.

“Are you okay?” Neville asks, bundled into his coat with his hat on lopsidedly, already shivering. He’s wearing a pair of mittens they bought earlier today in a charity shop close to Diagon Alley. Draco wants to tug him close and put his arms inside Neville’s jacket but he’s very aware of Potter, eyes flicking between them, watching them.

“Yes,” Draco tells him, avoiding Potter’s look, then nods towards the theatre. The couple are on the pavement now, trying to hail a taxi. “The play just finished.”

“What was it?” Neville asks,

Draco squints at the sign. “Les Mis,” he says, “I don’t know why they’re all so happy about it.”

“Have you seen it? I haven’t.”

“No,” Draco tells him, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I read the book.”

“Yeah?” Neville asks, in the voice he gets when he’s smiling.

“I wasn’t supposed to,” Draco tells him, “it’s written by a Muggle, so obviously I wasn’t supposed to.”

Potter snorts. “Fucking hell,” he says harshly, then cuts himself off.

“It was stupid,” Draco says absently, watching the couple across the road climb into the back of a beetly black car, “it was a stupid thing to do, my father would have pitched such a fit if he’d ever found out.” There’s an awkward sort of lull in the conversation for a moment, the mere mention of Draco’s father having made Potter and Neville clam up.

“Do you want to go back inside?” Neville says, “or we can go home, whatever you want.”

“I don’t want to go back in,” Draco says, feeling stupid about it, but Neville just nods. Draco catches hold of the hem of his sleeve hoping Potter won’t notice, but then his eyes flit down and up again, quickly, landing on Draco’s face. His mouth has gone sullen.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, “are you sick?” It supposed to be-- Draco thinks it’s supposed to be light, a joke, maybe, but it comes out serious and worried and makes Potter look angry at himself. He’s shaking from the cold, him and Neville both, but Draco can barely feel it. He feels light, hollow-boned like a bird.

“It’s like it never happened,” he blurts out, “I know that--I know that it did, but the way you all act sometimes is so-- unnerving.”

Potter takes that like a kick in the stomach, stepping backwards, and even Neville recoils, slipping out of Draco’s grip. “What, like we’ve forgotten?” Neville asks, in a voice Draco’s never heard before.

Potter starts laughing, quietly and determinedly at the corner of the building. “That came out wrong,” Draco says, heart thumping.

“ _Came out wrong_ ,” Potter mimics, “that’s one of the--” he cuts himself off and slams back inside the pub, leaving Neville and Draco on the pavement.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” Neville tells him tiredly, “just-- can you not say stuff like that.”

Draco looks at him, tries to explain, quietly, “I was just sitting there and--”

“I _know,_ ” Neville says, insists, “we all do. Suddenly one second you’re fine and the next you remember that you were in a fucking _war_ and that maybe it’s stupid to be laughing at a joke someone made as if nothing bad ever happened. You can’t _say that though._ ”

Draco’s jaw clenches. “I didn’t mean to-- I don’t know why not.”

“Because you can’t just say everything you think all the time,” Neville tells him. “You can’t just-- you can’t just make other people feel guilty for trying to have a single nice night.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” Draco says, desperate, it didn’t even occur to him that-- “I don’t think they should feel guilty.”

“Yeah,” Neville says, slowly, “I know, you idiot. Just-- filter sometimes, maybe.”

“Filter,” Draco repeats.

“It’s not necessary to say exactly what you’re thinking all the time,” Neville says.

“I don’t,” Draco replies, taken aback.

“Okay,” Neville says, the corner of his mouth curving up at the corner.

“He asked me,” Draco says, “and he seemed pretty serious about wanting to know the answer.”

Neville stares at him. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, wondrously, but before Draco has a chance to ask him what he means, Potter is out again, shoving Draco three steps back and pushing him against the white flagstones of the bank building beside the pub. They’re cold against Draco’s back.

“I just--” Potter says, as Neville says _Harry_ and puts his hand tightly around Potter’s forearm, digging in. Potter takes his hands off Draco’s shoulders, flexing his fingers down beside his waist.

“God I’m sorry you’re so much _sadder than us,_ ” Potter says, viciously, “must be so fucking terrible for you.”

“You fucking _asked me_ ,” Draco spits out, and sees Neville grimace out of the corner of his eye.

“I hate you,” Potter says, as though that’s some sort of revelation, “you just-- constantly talk shit, don’t you.”

“You don’t hate me,” Draco says, feeling his mouth twist cruelly, “you--”

“Draco,” Neville says urgently, grabbing hold of him, “we should go.”

“No,” Potter says, “no. Go ahead and tell me what I think about you.”

“You want to _fuck me,_ ” Draco says, voice hard and low.

Potter’s mouth twitches. “I want you shut you up,” he says, crowding in closer, “I want to see you with your mouth--”

 _“Harry,_ ” Neville says again, “we’re--” and Potter jolts, softening as he snaps out of it.

“We’re in public, Potter,” Draco says, smirking and straightening and crossing his arms. His whole body is humming, leaning in towards Potter who-- who looks worse under the electric street lights than he does normally, who’s still beautiful; dark hair and dark skin and clear green eyes.

Potter stares at him, glances toward Neville then back. “You can hate someone and want to fuck them at the same time,” he offers.

“You’ve always been great at multi-tasking,” Draco replies nonsensically. Neville starts-- _laughing_ , of all things, and says _Draco,_ deep with amusement even though his voice is mostly drowned out by the siren of a passing police car.

Potter’s face lit up in blue, he says, “I hate you,” almost gently, and reaches for Draco’s shoulder, his hand landing awkwardly and slipping on the fabric of Draco’s shirt, his thumb pressing right underneath Draco’s jaw.

“Act like it then,” Draco replies.

7.

They kiss on the street as Neville watches and laughs, and afterwards he blushes when Potter whispers something in his ear. Then he presses his lips against Draco’s cheek and says, “come on,” in a low, crumpled-sounding sort of voice that Draco would probably do anything to hear again. He takes a step backwards off the pavement and over the gutter into the wet street, his hand tight around Draco’s wrist. He doesn’t seem nervous at all, and then Draco remembers that he’s done this before. Potter’s face is bewildered, as though he’s started something he isn’t actually sure he wants to finish, but he’s watching Neville in the same stupid, wide-eyed way that Draco sometimes does. It’s likely that neither of them should even be allowed to touch someone like Neville, they’re not able for it.

“Give me a second,” Draco pants, when they arrive on Potter’s front step, and Potter leaves off from mouthing at his neck, immediately going still. His lips are warm and open and his nose is tucked behind Draco’s ear. “I get-- lightheaded from apparition sometimes,” Draco tells him, around deep, gasping breaths. Potter doesn’t say anything as he steps back, but he’s almost smiling, probably storing that information away so he can make fun of Draco over it at a later date.

“Me too,” he says, “if I haven’t eaten.” Draco blinks at him.

“Here,” Neville offers, and tilts Potter’s chin up so they can kiss, grabbing at each other until Neville shoves his hand up inside Potter’s jumper to stroke his thumb through the hair on his stomach. Potter stops moving and lets his mouth go slack, his hand clenching against Draco’s waist, hot and firm, as he makes a little noise in the back of his throat. Draco leans against the door and thinks about how it should probably feel odd to see Neville do this with someone else, Neville sucking on someone else’s bottom lip, Neville’s hand at the back of someone else’s neck, on someone else’s hair.

“Inside,” Potter says, pulling away, “inside?”

“Yeah,” Neville says, eyeing Draco. “Let’s-- inside, yeah.” Draco smiles at him, slowly, and watches Neville’s cheeks flush with colour. They kiss while Potter tries to unlock the front door; Neville’s touch is familiar and warm and practised, and he smells like the cigarettes people had been smoking on the street earlier. The top few buttons on Draco’s shirt become undone, somehow, and then Neville’s tongue is on his collarbone. Draco shivers and pushes his shoulders hard against the door.

They manage to make out pretty successfully for an extended period of time on one of Potter’s overstuffed sofas, in his downstairs living room with the bare Christmas tree in the corner waiting to be decorated. “Let’s go upstairs,” Neville suggests after a while, warm and languid where he’s leaning against Potter’s side with his head tilted back, Potter’s fingers curved possessively around his neck. Draco puts his teeth around Neville’s nipple, thoughtfully, and listens for the catch in Neville’s breath as he spreads his fingers out across Potter’s thigh. His hair is rumpled from when he’d run his hand through it a few times, eyes closed and breathing hard.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Potter agrees, staring at Draco with his eyes gone dark. He puts one hand down the front of his trousers to rearrange himself and Draco’s mouth goes dry. He’s hard. Draco is hot and tight inside too many clothes, he imagines lying down in Potter’s bed with Neville on top of him, riding him maybe, and just for a second he can’t even move with how much he wants it.

At first they try to go slowly, but it doesn’t work out quite the way it should, what with all of them greedy and eager to put skin against skin as fast as possible. Potter stretches out on the bed and lets Draco take his socks off, and then his trousers, and then stare at the tent in his boxers for a few moments before he pulls them off too; Potter’s dick hard against his stomach, dark and red and wet at the tip. Neville puts his mouth around it and Potter arches up off the mattress with a long, low moan that hits Draco in the chest. He feels-- awkward, unsure of himself and his limbs and his body and how to move everything in the right way. He’s used to Neville, the way Neville looks and the way Neville likes to be touched, and he finds himself being more cautious than he’d originally intended with Potter. He trips his fingers over Potter’s throat and Potter laughs and wriggles away, he pushes a little too hard on Potter’s shoulder as he’s trying to climb on top of him and Potter grunts, circling it against the mattress.

“Sorry,” Draco says, kissing the spot he hit and feeling like an idiot, “sorry.” Potter pulls his mouth off Neville’s dick and laughs, his hand still moving and wet with spit. Neville thumps his forehead against the mattress and groans, his toes clenching and unclenching in the sheets. Draco feels very far away from them both.

“Come down here,” Potter says after a second, his unoccupied hand wandering over Draco’s hip bones. “Help me with this,” he continues, his dick leaking against the inside of Draco’s thigh. Draco leans over him with his hand on the side of Potter’s neck, and nudges his nose against the base of Neville’s dick. _Help me with this._

“Draco,” Neville says, and his whole body shudders, his hand coming to rest in Draco’s hair. Potter’s hand is moving faster now, and he grins when Draco puts his mouth around Neville’s balls.

“Fuck,” he says, voice catching in the back of his throat, and Draco closes his eyes. Neville always goes quiet towards the end, and he comes almost silently onto the sheets and onto the pale curve of his stomach, his breath rasping. Eventually he pushes Potter’s hand away and slumps backwards with his legs spread, chest heaving. “Fuck,” Potter repeats, almost-- reverently, and Draco kisses him.

“He’s easy,” Draco says, and Potter nods, patting Neville’s knee fondly.  

“Fuck off,” Neville laughs, rolling over to dig around in the top drawer of Potter’s bedside table. He tosses a bottle of lube onto the bed and kicks it over to Draco. “Ask Harry what he likes,” he suggests, tilting his head to the side. “I want to look at you.”

It turns out that what Potter likes is having two fingers inside of him as Draco sucks him off. Potter is quiet and tense at first, until Draco pets the inside of his thigh and presses his knuckle into the soft skin just behind Potter’s balls. He lets out a soft breath, at that, and his knee falls to the side. “Okay?” Draco asks, as Potter rocks back onto his hand with his eyes closed and his mouth open. His arm is over his stomach, twitching every so often when Draco crooks his fingers upwards.

Potter grins. “Yeah,” he says, and repeats that a few more times while Draco mouths at the tip of his dick. “God,” he says, finally, long and low and drawn out into a moan, the only warning Draco gets before his mouth is full of Potter’s come. He swallows and then makes a face of distaste, which Potter doesn’t notice with his eyes closed tightly and his back arched, one of the most beautiful people Draco has ever seen. His heart is thumping against his ribcage, sweat prickling at the back of his neck, and when he looks up from the white streaks on Potter’s chest to see Neville staring at him he almost loses it right there, without even being touched.

He’d said that Neville was easy and it’s true-- Neville _is,_ never holds himself back or stops himself from doing anything, always eager to tip right over the edge with only the most perfunctory encouragement. Draco usually finds it more difficult, and even though he doesn’t ever make Neville _try at it_ , a lot of the time Neville ends up having to. He doesn’t mind, he’s said so before, but still Draco feels occasionally guilty about how long it takes them to get anywhere.

Tonight though, he’s been on the edge for what feels like an age, watched Neville come, and Potter after him, and Draco’s been hard forever. So it doesn’t take anywhere near as long as usual when Potter tips his dick upwards into his mouth, sucking on the head and running his tongue down the vein on the underside of the shaft. He puts his lips against Draco’s foreskin and wraps his hand around the base, his fingertips in Draco’s pubic hair, and then presses his tongue against the wet slit. Draco can’t feel anything else, can’t even _think_ with how good it feels, Neville kissing his mouth and his cheek and the curve of his ear.

“Come,” Potter says, like-- like a _command,_ moving his hand faster with a slick, rhythmic sound, his breath hot against Draco’s cock. “Come on, Malfoy,” he says, tightening his grip, and Draco slips over, spilling onto Potter’s fist and gasping for breath.

“God,” he manages, coming down from it with his limbs loose, listening to the syrupy, embarrassingly grateful note in his own voice. Potter’s still got a hold of him, cupping him loosely as he softens.

“Good?” Neville says, lips against the corner of Draco’s mouth. Draco doesn’t know how to reply to that. Potter gets up and goes into the bathroom, the tap cutting on behind the open door.

Draco laughs. “Neville,” he says, “what the fuck just happened.”

“I know,” Neville replies, shaking his head, smiling, “didn’t I tell you though?”

“Shut up,” Draco says, letting his head fall back against the pillow, “don’t start with me.”

“Tell me I have the best ideas,” Neville insists, whispering. Draco snorts.

“This one was a fluke,” he replies, and laughs again when Neville kicks him in the shin, bright and loud in the quiet room and the empty house.

Potter comes back into the room a little bit cleaner than he had been and pauses in the doorway. He folds his arms. “Do you want to stay?” he asks, looking over to the window, and the darkened street outside. “It’s late.”

Neville and Draco confer silently for a second, and then Neville reaches his hand towards Potter, beckoning. “If you do,” he says, but Potter just gives him a flat look. Draco doesn’t entirely understand what’s happening.

“I’m a loud sleeper,” Potter says, pulling a pair of boxers from the chest of drawers beside the bathroom door. The light in the room seems brighter now, and Draco feels awkward not having any clothes on. If Potter-- if Potter didn’t want them to stay then why did he ask.

“You’re not a loud sleeper,” Neville says, lifting up so that Draco can tug the duvet from underneath his legs and flip it over the bottom half of his body.

Potter’s jaw clenches. “I won’t sleep,” he says, “but I want you to be here in the morning.”

“So we can do this again?” Draco asks, then, “Potter you’re _so_ weird.”

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Potter says instead of answering, “or-- I’ll go out and buy breakfast.”

“We’re staying,” Neville says, gently, in a voice he sometimes uses to talk to Draco. “It’s fine.”

“There’s towels in the bathroom,” Potter says, gruff and odd and avoiding eye contact. Draco sits up.

“Goodnight then,” he says, and Potter takes a few hesitant steps forward to kiss him on the mouth, cool and tasting of toothpaste. He pulls back and nods once, satisfied with himself, and runs his hand down Neville’s back until it lands on his waist, kissing his cheek and then his lips. Neville opens up underneath him, tilting his head back.

Potter leaves after that, shutting the door with a stern, “I’ll be in the red guestroom.” Draco can only presume Neville knows which one that is. They’re both silent for a second, lying still. Draco can taste the chalky peppermint from Potter’s tongue.

“What the fuck,” he says again, and Neville looks at him, shrugging one shoulder.

“He doesn’t like sleeping with other people,” Neville says, “I’d forgotten about it.”

“Why not?” Draco asks, and then realises that’s a question Neville probably won’t be able to answer.

He shrugs again. “I don’t know,” he says, “he just likes having his own bed, I haven’t really asked about it.”

Draco hums in agreement. “We should shower,” he says, and they do, one after the other in the huge, glass thing in Potter’s en-suite. Then they get into bed and lie down facing one another; the sheets are soft and feel as though they’ve been washed over and over and over for about forty years, much like the sheets Draco used to sleep on in the Manor. He buries his face into the pillow; it’s lost it’s tinge of detergent and just smells clean, like Potter’s skin and the shampoo he has in his bathroom.

“We’re good,” Neville says, out of the darkness, “right?”

“Of course,” Draco responds, surprised even though it’s not really that ridiculous a question, considering. “Of course we are.”

“Do you want to do this again?” Neville asks him, quietly.

Draco rolls onto his back, stares up at the glowing star shapes Potter or someone else has stuck to the ceiling. “Not with anyone else,” he says, too honest.

“No,” Neville agrees, his voice soft and doused in sleep, “just with Harry.”

“Harry,” Draco echoes, curling in towards Neville, testing it out. “Harry Potter.” The shape of the words feel odd in his mouth.

“Stop babbling,” Neville says, lips against Draco’s, “go to sleep.”

8.

“Hold your breath,” Neville’s grandmother says, as they pass the small church cemetery on the way back from the shop in the nearby village. Neville sighs, and she shoots him a sharp look. “I’m quite serious.”

“Why?” Draco asks, even though he doesn’t want that look trained on him. They’re avoiding the wet clumps of foliage on the pavement that are starting to rot, and the whole road smells damp and musty. The low wall of the church grounds are lined with dark pine trees, their branches vibrating in the strong wind.

“You’ll die,” Neville says, hefting his shopping bag into his opposite hand and flexing his fingers. He turns his palm to show Draco the red welts across it, and Draco touches a finger to them. Neville catches his wrist.

“It isn’t a _joke_ ,” his grandmother says, and comes to a sharp stop right before they get to the gate. Draco stops beside her, more out of surprise than anything else, which then forces Neville to also come to a halt; the three of them standing in an awkward line across the slippery pavement.

“It’s just superstition,” Neville says, laughing and gesturing to the graveyard, “I’m not going to hold my breath for the whole three minutes it takes us to walk past.”

Neville’s grandmother gives him a withering look. “What’s it supposed to do?” Draco asks neither of them in particular.

“It curses you,” Neville says, rolling his eyes only a little.

“It’s bad luck,” she corrects sternly, pulling her long coat more firmly around her, “So it may as well be a curse.”

“And holding your breath--”

“Is supposed to protect you, yeah,” Neville interrupts, “I can’t even tell you how many graveyards I’ve walked past where--”

“And we’ve had this argument every single time,” his grandmother snaps, “you’re taking years off my life, young man.”

“ _Young man,_ ” Draco echoes delightedly at Neville, and ducks away as he tries to smack Draco’s arm, hindered by the weight of the shopping. Neville’s grandmother is always coming out with things like that, it’s brilliant, and also sometimes reminds him of the way his mother used to speak to him when he was a baby.

“Oh _stop it,_ ” she says, finally getting fed up, “if you’re too _clever_ to listen to me then--”

“Oh Merlin,” Neville groans, “I’ll do it, sorry, we’ll both do it. Please don’t start.” She narrows her eyes and takes a deep, deliberate lungful of air, starting off at a fast clip past the church, her back straight and rigid. Draco laughs so hard that it takes him a long time to actually be able to catch a breath, bent over at the waist and helpless.

“For fucks sake,” Neville says, pulling on his wrist, “we’ll never get home at this rate.”

“She’s _mental,_ ” Draco gasps, “it’s so brilliant.”

“I know,” Neville tells him, “because I fucking live with her. Come _on._ ” This last syllable is punctuated with a sharp tug at Draco’s hand.

“Wait,” Draco says, sobering, “hold your breath.”

Neville rolls his eyes again, it’s starting to look painful. “You too? Is this some wanky pureblood thing?”

“What?” Draco asks, looking at him. “Don’t be idiotic. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, it would really ruin my Christmas.”

Neville stares at him, then starts to smile, as though he’s trying to keep it off his face. He bites the inside of his mouth and tightens his grip around Draco’s arm. “Stop,” he says, “we’ve got too much to do and I can’t concentrate on cooking prep when you’re being nice to me.”

“I’m always nice to you,” Draco tells him.

Neville tilts his head to the side. “Hm,” he says, “I’m going to have to think about that.”

“Think about _what?”_ Draco asks, but Neville, being an obnoxious wanker, just holds his breath and starts walking backwards to where his grandmother has paused, just beyond the line of pines under a muggle bus shelter with a perfume advert on the side. “Prat,” Draco mutters, taking a deep breath.

*

Back at the house they spend an age putting the shopping away under the watchful eye of Neville’s grandmother, who sits at the kitchen table and directs them over the right place to put all the vegetables they’ve bought. Even though Neville has lived here practically his whole life.

“Where does this live?” he asks, holding up a box of clingfilm-wrapped mushrooms.

“Fridge,” Neville’s grandmother says shortly, glancing up from her novel. There’s a very racy picture of a pirate on the front, and Draco’s planning on borrowing it when she’s finished.

“What about this one?” Neville asks, holding up another pack of mushrooms.

She doesn’t rise to the bait. “Fridge,” she repeats, taking a cool sip of tea. Draco finds this back and forth intensely fascinating.

“Grandmother,” Neville says, after a few seconds, holding a box of tea, “where does this live?”

“In the tea drawer,” she says, and Draco laughs and laughs and has to sit down on the floor, holding a pat of butter with his eyes watering.

“Oh my god,” he says, “I’m going to wet myself.”

“I’ve just washed the floor,” Neville’s grandmother says, and sweeps out of the room with her tea levitating in the air behind her. Neville squats down and puts his chin on Draco’s shoulder.

“Keep it together,” he says.

“Oh my god,” Draco manages, “I love you so much,” and then goes still when that registers. Neville doesn’t seem to have heard anything out of the ordinary.

“You too,” he says, levering himself up again with his hand on Draco’s head. He puts the tea in the tea drawer without even looking for it.

“Great,” Draco says, voice strained. “Okay then.”

“Harry’s later,” Neville says, conversationally, rooting around in the fabric bag he was carrying for a packet of shortbread biscuits, which he opens. “Want one?” he asks, offering them to Draco, a stray piece of wrapper floating down onto the wooden floor beside Draco’s bare feet.

“Neville,” Draco says, and then can’t think of how to continue.

“I heard you,” Neville says, “I love you too.”

“Ugh,” Draco says, making a face. His heart is in his throat. “Don’t be embarrassing about it.”

“Keep it together,” Neville says again, gently, and Draco lets his head thunk against the red kitchen cabinet. Then Neville tries to feed him a biscuit while his eyes are closed.

*

Later that evening they fly over to Grimmauld Place, it isn’t very far from Neville’s house and the night is cold but clear, and they’re alright after they’ve cast a few hefty warming charms. Neville lends him a pair of mittens he found on the train last weekend and shrunk in the wash. They’re a little too tight, but Draco doesn’t have any of his own since he lost them. He’s still shivering though, by the time they arrive in Potter’s back garden, knocking on the glass door in the kitchen until Potter turns up looking bewildered.

“I was expecting you at the front,” he says, confused and scrubbing a hand through his hair.

Draco is silent for a moment. “Well, we can go around if it would make you feel better,” he offers. Neville pushes past him before Potter can answer, trailing his hand across Potter’s stomach as he goes through the door.

“Are you feeding us?” he asks, “my grandmother wouldn’t cook for us when she found out we were coming over.”

“So you’re not really asking,” Potter says, “because what you’re saying is that neither of you have had any dinner and I’ll be a terrible person if I don’t give you anything.”

“What do you have?” Draco asks, while Neville says _yes,_ muffled from where he’s pulling one his jumpers off over his head, leaving him in a too-small one with a reindeer on the front.

Potter widens his eyes. “Great jumper,” he says, “can I borrow it sometime?”

“Not during the Christmas season,” Neville says, grinning, “but after New Year it’s all yours mate.”

“He’s been wearing that for six days straight,” Draco informs the room at large, “even in bed.”

“Even in bed,” Potter repeats dubiously, “Christ.”

“Exactly,” Draco says, “now about that food.”

“I’ve got some bread and hummus,” Potter offers. Neville makes a face.

“Classic vegan,” he says, “what are you doing for the lunch tomorrow at the Burrow?”

“Molly’s making a nut roast?” Potter says, “so-- probably just vegetables and potatoes.”

“I heard Luna was bringing a pie,” Draco says, leading the way into the kitchen and opening Potter’s massive fridge. It’s looking even more sparse than usual. “You’ve not even got any _milk,_ ” he says in disgust.

“Vegan,” Potter says, indicating himself.

Draco truly can’t deal with him sometimes. “You don’t even have any fucking _soya milk,_ ” he says, “Neville we can’t stay here for breakfast.”

“We can’t anyway,” Neville says, ripping a chunk out of a baguette that’s lying on the kitchen counter. “Stockings to open, outfits to put on, things to do.”

“What time are you going over to the Weasley’s?” Draco asks, but Potter seems pretty focused on watching Neville scarf down as much baguette as he can possibly handle.

“Dunno,” he says offhandedly, “like one, maybe? Usually I try and avoid the meal prep if I can help it.”

“Such a gracious guest,” Draco mutters.

“Do you want some fake butter?” Potter asks Neville, “or literally anything so you aren’t eating _plain dry baguette.”_

“Flying makes me hungry,” Neville protests, “but yes Harry I will have jam, thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Potter smiles, almost to himself, and makes Neville a jam sandwich with some depressing-looking blackcurrant stuff he finds tucked behind a jar of Branston pickle.

“Come on,” Draco insists, while Neville eats it, offering him a bite every so often, “big day tomorrow.”

“What exactly are you saying,” Potter laughs. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Draco stares at him. “We don’t have time for this.”

Potter stalks over, still laughing, and kisses him against the cold metal of the fridge, cupping his hands around Draco’s face and doing a pretty thorough job of it. Draco goes lax under his hands, opening his mouth and licking his tongue over Potter’s bottom lip.

“Demanding,” Potter says, biting his earlobe. It shouldn’t be hot, it’s Draco’s _earlobe_ and it even hurts a little bit, but it is, somehow. Draco can’t form an intelligent enough reply so he decides that staying silent is the more prudent response.

“Come on,” Neville says, throwing the crust of his sandwich in the bin and putting his hands on Potter’s waist, pulling him backwards. “It’s already late.”

“What is _wrong_ with you both?” Potter wonders, “do you not want to talk for a bit? Watch TV?”

Draco snorts. “We can talk tomorrow at the Christmas meal, I’ll be very polite to you.”

“Time to have sex now,” Neville says, and Potter rolls his eyes but his cheeks are flushing, and his eyes go all dark and unfocused for a second.

“Upstairs then,” he says, “to where the lube is.”

“To where the beds are,” Draco agrees.

*

Potter’s impatient during sex and often he can hardly be bothered waiting long enough to fuck someone or get fucked himself, but tonight he’s in a lazy kind of mood, letting Neville open him and take a long time doing it. Draco sits up beside his head, petting his hair and occasionally leaning down to kiss him, his hair falling around Potter’s face.

“Okay,” Potter says after a while, “Neville it’s good,” and grunts low in the back of his throat when Neville starts to press into him, sliding gently in and out a few times until he’s bottomed out, his head angled downwards and his arms straining beside Potter’s waist. Potter shifts his hips upward, hooking his leg more firmly behind Neville’s back. “Come _on,_ ” he says, and loses it when Neville starts fucking into him properly, in short, firm thrusts that nudge Potter’s head against Draco’s thigh. Neville stays doing that for a while, until Potter is incoherent beneath him, wriggling around and trying for a good angle and not even wanking himself anymore because he’s too distracted, just keeping a firm hand around his dick.

“Do you want to come?” Neville asks, ducking down to kiss his chin.

“Nah,” Potter says shakily, and then laughs, breathless, “I’ll wait for Malfoy.” Neville doesn’t last for very much longer before he's shuddering, his hips stilling and his breath choking out of him in little gasps that make Draco’s stomach clench. Potter’s chest is heaving, and his hand is wrapped tight around the base of his cock.

“I’m going to come as soon as you get inside me,” he says, as Neville lies down on him very gently and tucks his head into the junction between Potter’s neck and shoulder.

“That’s alright,” Draco says, touching his fingers to the wet tip of his dick, his hips jolting.

Neville kisses Potter’s neck and starts to pull out slowly, holding the base of the condom as he eases away from Potter’s body, Potter grimacing just a little beneath him. “Sorry,” Neville says, his hand tightening on Potter’s side.

“It’s--” Potter says, and then grunts again when Neville slides all the way out, “just-- uncomfortable, that’s all.”

“It’s worse when you’ve come,” Draco says, and Potter nods his head against the pillow, stretching his legs out before holding them open again with his hands on the backs of his thighs. Neville ties the condom and lobs it across the room, none of them looking to see whether or not he manages to land it in the bin or not.

“Okay,” Potter says, and Draco opens the little foil wrapper, slicking himself with the lube Neville offers. Potter’s wet, and a little bit open from where Neville has just been inside him. Draco fits the head of his dick against Potter’s hole, pushing inside only a fraction before pausing. He loves it when that’s done to him, the stretch right at the start, the ache for something else. “Come _on,_ ” Potter pants, wild-eyed, and Draco obliges. Potter grabs his waist, urging him on, bucking against him a few times, and then they’re _fucking,_ noisy and sweating and brilliant, and Neville’s kissing Draco’s shoulders.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck _,_ ” Potter says sharply, and Draco feels it right in his throat, and then he’s coming and Potter is spilling underneath him, wanking himself through it as he does, laughing and lovely against the dark red sheets on his bed.

*

In the night, Draco lurches awake with a dry mouth and his heart racing, Neville still warm and asleep beside him. He trudges down the long flight of stairs and into the kitchen, the tiles freezing under his feet. He switches the light on and sees Potter sitting on the kitchen counter with a glass of water resting beside his knee.

“Sorry,” Draco says, shocked out of his mind, “fuck.”

“Sorry,” Potter echoes, staring at him blankly, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s-- fine, it’s alright,” Draco says, around a wide yawn, “I wish you wouldn’t sit here in the dark though.”

“I can’t sleep,” Potter says, watching him as Draco goes to get his own glass of water, sipping it and leaning heavily against the sink counter.

“I woke up,” Draco tells him, studying the way the bright overhead light bounces off the cut crystal glass. It looks wildly expensive, and he’s seen Potter drop one before and throw the shards away without even attempting a _reparo_.

Potter shrugs, scratching his stomach under his t-shirt. “I can’t turn my brain off.”

Draco wants to know exactly what it is Potter thinks about when he can’t sleep, he wants to get right inside Potter’s brain and root around in it. He wants to know every thought Potter has. He wonders, for a second, when he started to feel that way.

“I feel weird,” Potter says, looking smaller than he is with his shoulders hunched over, his chin tucked down towards his chest.

“Why?” Draco asks, stepping a little closer.

Potter stares at him, for a long time, then the expression on his face turns resolute. “Neville is one of the best, bravest people I know,” Potter says, “and we’re just fucking-- shit people he’s far too nice to.”

Draco takes a breath, pauses before he can even say the first thing that comes to mind. “I don’t think he’d agree with you,” he tries, even though some of the time he thinks the exact same thing.

Potter snorts softly. “That’s exactly my point. He’s so-- good-hearted.”

Potter says this as if he doesn’t know he’s essentially a good-hearted person himself. Maybe he doesn’t, it’s very obvious to Draco though.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Draco says, because he’s had this conversation with himself a lot. “You’re not a shit person and Neville knows what he’s doing.” Potter’s head snaps up, looking away from his clasped hands. He blinks a few times.

“Okay,” he says, “I know that.”

“That was really easy,” Draco tells him, walking over to stand beside him. Potter’s taller when he’s sitting on the kitchen counter, tall enough that Draco has to stretch upwards to kiss him.

“I’m worried I’ll do something to hurt him, say the wrong thing or do something-- I don’t know, do something bad,” Potter confesses, young and confused in his big, echoing kitchen. His breath is coming shaky in the silence.

“You won’t,” Draco insists, “I promise. I think that all the time, but we won’t.”

Potter sighs into the skin on his neck. “We’ll look out for each other,” he says, slightly muffled, and what he means is _watch me, so I don’t do anything I’ll regret._

“Yeah,” Draco says, cupping the back of his head, he’ll do anything. “Come to bed,” he says, trying to make it sound as though he isn’t desperate. He wants Potter close to him, close to Neville, wants his arms around Potter’s stomach and their legs tangled together.

“Since I can’t sleep anyway,” Potter laughs, softly. “I’ll just lie awake, I suppose.” He turns his face into Draco’s neck, steadies his breathing.

“If you’re lucky,” Draco says, clenching his hand in the soft fabric of Potter’s t-shirt, near the collar, “I’ll lie awake with you.”  


**Author's Note:**

> you probably fukn got here from my tumblr but just in case: [I have tumblr!!!](http://seefin.tumblr.com)


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